The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies

Part 1

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

This book was published in 1893 and is a careful reproduction of a book printed in 1815 from a manuscript of 1691 by Rev. Robert Kirk. An Introduction and Notes have been added by Andrew Lang for the 1893 publication.

In this etext: Italic text is denoted by underscores. Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the Lang footnotes have been placed at the end of the book in front of the two Catalog pages.

Except for a very few changes noted at the end of the book, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been left unchanged.

THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH OF ELVES FAUNS & FAIRIES

Bibliothèque de Carabas

VOL. VIII

Five hundred and fifty copies of this Edition have been printed, five hundred of which are for sale.

The Secret Commonwealth of

Elves, Fauns, & Fairies

A Study in Folk-Lore & Psychical Research. The Text by Robert Kirk, M.A., Minister of Aberfoyle, A.D. 1691. The Comment by Andrew Lang, M.A. A.D. 1893

LONDON. M.D.CCCXCIII. PUBLISHED BY DAVID NUTT, IN THE STRAND

Dedication.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

O Louis! you that like them maist, Ye’re far frae kelpie, wraith, and ghaist, And fairy dames, no unco chaste, And haunted cell. Among a heathen clan ye’re placed, That kens na hell!

Ye hae nae heather, peat, nor birks, Nae troot in a’ your burnies lurks, There are nae bonny U.P. kirks, An awfu’ place! Nane kens the Covenant o’ Works Frae that of Grace!

But whiles, maybe, to them ye’ll read Blads o’ the Covenanting creed, And whiles their pagan wames ye’ll feed On halesome parritch; And syne ye’ll gar them learn a screed O’ the Shorter Carritch.

Yet thae uncovenanted shavers Hae rowth, ye say, o’ clash and clavers O’ gods and etins—auld wives’ havers, But their delight; The voice o’ him that tells them quavers Just wi’ fair fright.

And ye might tell, ayont the faem, Thae Hieland clashes o’ oor hame. To speak the truth, I tak’ na shame To half believe them; And, stamped wi’ TUSITALA’s name, They’ll a’ receive them.

And folk to come, ayont the sea, May hear the yowl of the Banshie, And frae the water-kelpie flee, Ere a’ things cease, And island bairns may stolen be By the Folk o’ Peace.

Faith, they might steal me, wi’ ma will, And, ken’d I ony Fairy hill, I’d lay me down there, snod and still, Their land to win, For, man, I’ve maistly had my fill O’ this world’s din.

The Fairy Minister.

IN MEMORY OF THE REV. ROBERT KIRK, WHO WENT TO HIS OWN HERD, AND ENTERED INTO THE LAND OF THE PEOPLE OF PEACE, IN THE YEAR OF GRACE SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO, AND OF HIS AGE FIFTY-TWO.

People of Peace! A peaceful man, Well worthy of your love was he, Who, while the roaring Garry ran Red with the life-blood of Dundee, While coats were turning, crowns were falling, Wandered along his valley still, And heard your mystic voices calling From fairy knowe and haunted hill. He heard, he saw, he knew too well The secrets of your fairy clan; You stole him from the haunted dell, Who never more was seen of man. Now far from heaven, and safe from hell, Unknown of earth, he wanders free. Would that he might return and tell Of his mysterious company! For we have tired the Folk of Peace; No more they tax our corn and oil; Their dances on the moorland cease, The Brownie stints his wonted toil. No more shall any shepherd meet The ladies of the fairy clan, Nor are their deathly kisses sweet On lips of any earthly man. And half I envy him who now, Clothed in her Court’s enchanted green, By moonlit loch or mountain’s brow Is Chaplain to the Fairy Queen. A. L.

KIRK’S

SECRET COMMONWEALTH.

INTRODUCTION.

Part 2

I. THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK AND AUTHOR.

The bibliography of the following little tract is extremely obscure. The title-page of the edition of 1815, which we reproduce, gives the date as 1691. Sir Walter Scott says in his Demonology and Witchcraft (1830, p. 163, note), “It was printed with the author’s name in 1691, and reprinted, in 1815, for Longman & Co.” But was there really a printed edition of 1691? Scott says that he never met with an example. Research in our great libraries has discovered none, and there is none save that of 1815 at Abbotsford. The reprint, of one hundred copies, was made, as it states, from no printed text, but from “a manuscript copy preserved in the Advocates’ Library.” On page 45 of the edition of 1815, at the end of the comments on Lord Tarbott’s Letters, there is a “Note by the Transcriber”—that is, the person who wrote out the manuscript in the Advocates’ Library: “See the rest in a little manuscript belonging to Coline Kirk.” Now Coline or Colin Kirk, Writer to the Signet, was the son of the Rev. Mr. Kirk, author of the tract. If the son had his father’s book only in manuscript, it seems very probable that it was not printed in 1691; that the title-page is only the title-page of a manuscript. Till some printed text of 1691 is discovered, we may doubt, then, whether the hundred copies published in 1815, and now somewhat rare, be not the original printed edition. The editor has a copy of 1815, but it is the only one which he has met with for sale.

The Rev. Robert Kirk, the author of The Secret Commonwealth, was a student of theology at St. Andrews: his Master’s degree, however, he took at Edinburgh. He was (and this is notable) the youngest and seventh son of Mr. James Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, the place familiar to all readers of Rob Roy. As a seventh son, he was, no doubt, specially gifted, and in The Secret Commonwealth he lays some stress on the mystic privileges of such birth. There may be “some secret virtue in the womb of the parent, which increaseth until the seventh son be borne, and decreaseth by the same degree afterwards.” It would not surprise us if Mr. Kirk, no less than the Rev. Robert Blair of St. Andrews (1650-60), could heal scrofula by the touch, like royal persons—Charles III. in Italy, for example. As is well known to all, the House of Brunswick has no such powers. However this may have been, Mr. Kirk was probably drawn, by his seventh sonship, to a more careful study of psychical phenomena than most of his brethren bestowed. Little is known of his life. He was minister originally of Balquidder, whence, in 1685, he was transferred to Aberfoyle. This was no Covenanting district, and there is no bigotry in Mr. Kirk’s dissertation. He was employed on an “Irish” translation of the Bible, and he published a Psalter in Gaelic (1684). He married, first, Isobel, daughter of Sir Colin Campbell of Mochester, who died in 1680, and, secondly, the daughter of Campbell of Fordy: this lady survived him. From his connection with Campbells, we may misdoubt him for a Whig. By his first wife he had a son, Colin Kirk, W.S.; by his second wife, a son who was minister of Dornoch. He died (if he did die, which is disputed) in 1692, aged about fifty-one; his tomb was inscribed—

ROBERTUS KIRK, A.M. Linguæ Hiberniæ Lumen.

The tomb, in Scott’s time, was to be seen in the east end of the churchyard of Aberfoyle; but the ashes of Mr. Kirk are not there. His successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, in his Sketches of Picturesque Scenery, informs us that, as Mr. Kirk was walking on a dun-shi, or fairy-hill, in his neighbourhood, he sunk down in a swoon, which was taken for death. “After the ceremony of a seeming funeral,” writes Scott (op. cit., p. 105), “the form of the Rev. Robert Kirk appeared to a relation, and commanded him to go to Grahame of Duchray. ‘Say to Duchray, who is my cousin as well as your own, that I am not dead, but a captive in Fairyland; and only one chance remains for my liberation. When the posthumous child, of which my wife has been delivered since my disappearance, shall be brought to baptism, I will appear in the room, when, if Duchray shall throw over my head the knife or dirk which he holds in his hand, I may be restored to society; but if this is neglected, I am lost for ever.’” True to his tryst, Mr. Kirk did appear at the christening, and “was visibly seen;” but Duchray was so astonished that he did not throw his dirk over the head of the appearance, and to society Mr. Kirk has not yet been restored. This is extremely to be regretted, as he could now add matter of much importance to his treatise. Neither history nor tradition has more to tell about Mr. Robert Kirk, who seems to have been a man of good family, a student, and, as his book shows, an innocent and learned person.

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